Singer's Song
by White Eevee
Summary: Fantasy AU. While Shion and Safu are practicing their magic outside of town, they are interrupted by a procession of border guards. Shion becomes curious about a covered cage they have, and when he thinks he spots a human child inside, he can't help but investigate further.


My submission for the 2019 No. 6 Zine: Myths and Legends of No. 6  
If you'd like to see more, visit the No. 6 Zine's tumblr (restructuralcommittee) to find out how to download the zine!

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Shion watched Safu weave the water into a complicated knot in the air. It was a beautiful piece of magic, and not easy, especially for a child of twelve. Her brow beaded with sweat, but she kept her arms up and never removed her eyes from her task. Once Safu achieved an approximation of the royal fox and sword seal, she held it aloft for a few trembling seconds and then let the water splash down onto the grass.

Shion grinned at her. "That was amazing."

Safu swiped at her forehead and sighed. "Thanks. It's not as stable as it needs to be, but… it is pretty darn good, isn't it?" She allowed herself a grin of her own. "What have you been working on?"

Shion paused in brushing some errant water droplets from his shorts. "Erm…" He cleared his throat. "Well, there is this one thing…" Collecting his courage, Shion pursed his lips and whistled the tonic of his latest learned incantation.

Nothing happened for a moment, but then a sound like a soft breeze in the leaves rose around them. Safu sidled closer to Shion, face tinged with fear. Mice in varying shades of browns, grays, and black flooded out of the forest. Shion held the tone, and once he had the mice settled at attention, he sharpened the pitch to direct them.

"Tada!" Shion sang as the mice piled one on top of the other in a pyramid of pinnacle rodent dexterity. Safu crossed her arms and frowned, first at the mice, then at Shion.

"Familiar magic?" The delight in Shion's chest fizzled out at her dismissive tone. "Shion, don't tell me all you've practiced is that useless incantation. We have to do something extraordinary in the auditions; otherwise the royal scouts won't take a second look at us."

"Yeah, I know, I just…" Shion scuffed his shoe in the dirt. "I don't know, it just doesn't seem so urgent to me, I guess. The audition isn't until we're sixteen, and that's years from now."

"Yes, but we have to master at least the _Vox Prima _before then. That's the _bare minimum_, Shion. If we want to actually impress anyone, we have to do something better, more memorable. The way you talk sometimes, I…" Safu huffed and threw out her hands. "Don't you want to be an apprentice to the High Mage?"

"Well… Sure, I guess." Being apprentice to the High Mage would be a great honor, and he supposed there wasn't much else to which a nobody from Lost Town could aspire. He certainly didn't have any alternate aspirations.

Shion shoved his hands in his pockets and whistled the coda to the incantation. The rodent pyramid exploded as the mice dispersed and disappeared into the forest nooks.

"I don't understand you sometimes," said Safu, kneading her temple. It was an expression of distress that she had adopted from Shion's mother. Shion smiled crookedly and shrugged a shoulder.

"Come on," Safu sighed. "Do some elementals with me."

They practiced water incantations for the next half hour, during which Safu had limited success in inspiring Shion to the same level of focus as herself. Shion had resigned himself to Safu drilling him in water spurts, knots, and ribbons until sundown, but a commotion from town tore their attention from their exercise.

Shion and Safu glanced at one another. They were on the southern edge of town, and could clearly hear the clatter of wagons and hooves from the cobbled square. Lost Town had four horses among the hundred persons who lived there and perhaps two wagons, and the town did not receive many visitors.

Safu's eyes shone as she mouthed, _Scouts_. Shion, for his part, hoped the caravan belonged to a traveling circus. Shion and Safu abandoned their magics and raced to investigate.

The townspeople lined the streets as the convoy of horses and wagons trundled down the main lane. The men and women atop the horses wore the dark uniforms and forbidding expressions of the border guard. Safu and Shion tucked their chins in and sighed, disappointed.

Among the stream of wagons, the last was unlike the others. It was large and square, and overlaid with a black cloth. The cloth was tied down at the base of the wagon to keep it from coming loose, and when the breeze teased the fabric, Shion could see the outline of bars beneath. His heart sped at the sight of it. He had heard stories of rare creatures discovered in the borderlands and the specimens the guards brought back for the royal family. The border guard had reportedly captured a manticore on their last mission, the news of which stretched as far east as Chronos.

Whatever was in that cage was certainly another live specimen—otherwise why would they need to cage and cover it? _What could it be? A unicorn? Another manticore? _Shion stepped forward, peering around the hem of the cloth for a gap through which he could glimpse the cage's contents. The procession rolled by and the crowd surged forward to follow. Shion pressed himself into the wall of bodies.

"Shion!" Safu hissed, but he waved at her to be quiet and scuttled after the caravan, keeping low in the crowd.

_Just a peek_, he told himself. He would share whatever he found with Safu afterwards.

Shion had to do some light shouldering and much ducking, but as he was a small child, it wasn't too difficult a task to weave his way to the covered wagon undetected. The guards were all ahead of the cage, faces pointed grimly forward. Shion probed the edge of the cloth for an opening and found a small gap. He peeled it back and peered into the cage.

He could make out only blackness at first, and the cage had no distinct animal smell. Perhaps he had been wrong… Then something moved in the shadows; he heard the scrape of it coming toward him and his heart raced. A hand slipped into the sliver of light, small and pale.

_A hand? _Shion's breath stuttered as he followed the hand to the rope encircling it. His eyes had adjusted some, and he thought… He thought he could make out a small form. Not a unicorn, not a manticore, but a human child. The figure leaned toward the light, and Shion caught a glimmer of silver before something hot and stinging slashed across his cheek.

Shion yelped and stumbled back from the cage. A gaunt, broad-shouldered guard loomed over him on a roan steed. The crowd had fallen back at some point, but Shion had failed to notice. The afterimage of the child's silver eyes burned behind his lids.

"You backwater peasants are so nosy," the guard said with gravelly distain.

Shion swallowed and clapped a hand over his cheek. His palm came away with a smear of blood.

"Get back with the others," barked the man. Shion glared back at him. He wanted to ask what was in the cage, but the guard's glare was forbidding, and his riding crop was half raised, ready and wanting to strike again.

Shion caught Safu watching him from the front of the crowd, her eyes wide and frightened. Shion's gaze flicked once more to the dark cage. Then he dipped his chin and stalked back into the crowd.

Shion didn't tell anyone what he had seen, and so no one expected him to sneak out that night to investigate further. He crept from his house and padded through the streets with only a small conjured light fisted in his hand. Over the course of some afternoon snooping, Shion had learned that the border guards were posted in the woods just outside Lost Town, and he found them there, ready to move out at first light.

He could see at least one guard on watch directly in front of the cage wagon, and despite Shion's small stature and relative inconspicuousness, he knew he was no professional sneak. He was, however, an amateur mage.

Shion snuffed out the light in his fist and cupped his hand over his mouth to whistle. He sent the first mouse to chew the horses' tethers loose and startle them. The second and third he kept in his pockets. The guard looked flummoxed, but not suspicious when the horses bolted. She cursed and gave chase, and a few more guards jumped out of their tents and joined.

As Shion pelted on tiptoe toward the covered wagon, he took a few erratic heartbeats to recognize how stupidly crazy he was for doing this. Was it so necessary to carry out this subterfuge just to get a second glimpse at the child? The border guard only captured beasts, never human children—perhaps the thing in the cage wasn't a child at all, but a shape shifter or satyr. And yet, Shion couldn't get those silver eyes out of his head.

The cloth in the front of the cage had been untied to provide access to the door—Shion couldn't guess why, but he was deeply grateful for it. He threw the cloth up and slipped under it, pressing his body against the cold bars of the cage to conceal his form beneath it. Then, with shaky breath, he conjured an orb of light and tossed it into the cage.

There was a child tied to the floor of the cage with rope around both ankles and wrists. They had averted their gaze from the dim light of the orb, so all Shion could make out otherwise was that they had dark, shoulder-length hair and dirty threadbare clothes. But then the child turned their face, squinting in the light, and Shion's breath hitched.

Their eyes were brilliant grey, bright and fierce as polished silver. Shion was so transfixed, it took him a moment to realize the child also had a gag strapped tightly over their mouth.

Shock rippled through him. Maybe it was a shapeshifter, maybe not, but Shion couldn't bear the inhumanity of its predicament. "Hold on," he whispered loud as he dared. "I'm getting you out of here." The child straightened in response.

Shion studied the lock of the cage. He could perhaps melt it, but his handle on fire elementals was poor, and something with less finesse like setting off a small explosion would draw attention. He decided to leave that problem for later, and focus on what he could do.

Shion whistled and sent the mice in his pockets scurrying into the cage to gnaw through the ropes restraining the prisoner's ankles and wrists. The skin beneath was raw and crusted with dried blood, and though Shion's chest tightened in horror at the sight, he was also relieved: shapeshifters didn't bleed. The mice returned to Shion's pockets when the deed was done.

The moment their hands were free, the child ripped the gag off. "Thank the heavens," they said hoarsely. "I thought I'd never speak again." The child's voice was rough, but distinctly male.

The boy fixed Shion with an appraising look. "What magic will you use to break me out?"

"I'm going to try to blow the lock," he said, aware that the guards could be back any moment and that this was the quickest way forward.

The boy made a face. "Too loud. Move aside; I've got this." He opened his mouth and one pure note of music slipped from his lips. At least, it sounded like music at first, but then Shion wasn't sure. The harder he tried to recall the sound of it, the faster the memory slipped from his grasp.

Shion gaped and stepped down as the door creaked ajar. The boy took no time in pushing it the rest of the way open and hopping out.

"How…?"

"Questions later. Now, run."

The boy sprinted toward the thickest of the trees and, slightly dazed, Shion followed. Once they were a good distance away and well hidden in the brush, Shion decided it was safe to let flow the questions bubbling up his throat.

"How did you do that? That music… I've never heard an incantation like it."

"That wasn't an incantation," the boy sniffed. "It was natural talent. I'm a Singer."

"A Singer?" The word scratched at the back of Shion's mind. His instructors had spoken of them before, long ago; Singers were a peaceful people with a powerful gift. Most elemental and familiar incantations were designed to mimic the Singers' innate magic.

"But—" Shion's eyes widened. "I thought all the Singers went extinct in the last border war!"

"Nearly all of us did." The boy's eyes glittered in the dark. Pain stole onto his face, but the next moment his expression and tone turned dry. "But could you not use words like 'extinct' when referring to us? We're a people, not a species of beast."

"Oh. Sorry…. That's the word they use when they teach us about the Mao Massacre."

A muscle slid in the Singer's jaw and Shion apologized again for his word choice. It really was high time he shut his mouth; it seemed he could do nothing with it but offend. But he had a feeling that if he didn't keep talking, the other boy would suddenly leave, so he blurted, "I'm Shion, by the way."

"Shion…." the boy repeated, rolling the name slowly over his tongue. There was something musical in the way he spoke it. Shion's heart skittered in his chest.

"What's your name?"

The boy's considering expression sharpened, and for a full second Shion was pinned by the flash of heat in his grey eyes. Shion's mouth went dry. _Are you not supposed to ask a Singer their name? _He couldn't remember anything about it in his lessons.

The boy searched his face. Shion wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he must have found it, because the tension in his body uncoiled. "Nezumi," he answered.

Shion tilted his head. It was a strange name, but the soft susurration of syllables fit the elegant boy before him perfectly.

"Well," Nezumi said after a beat, "I'm not sure what possessed you to help a complete stranger break out of captivity, but… thanks."

Shion smiled at the shy slant to the words. "It was no trouble."

Nezumi's expression shifted. Shion went still as Nezumi's fingers brushed his cheek. "No trouble, huh?" he said softly. His thumb traced the slash from the guard's riding crop. It had scabbed over in an angry red line from his cheekbone to his ear, but there was a chance it might not scar.

Shion shrugged a shoulder, careful not to move too much under Nezumi's feather light touch. "It's fine. It didn't hurt that much."

"If you say so." Nezumi dropped his hand. Shion released a slow, shaky breath. "I guess I owe you…" He looked uncomfortable, as if being in debt to Shion was a weight he'd sooner cast off.

"You don't need to repay me. It was the right thing to do. But…" Something was still bothering him. "Why did the border guard have you locked up?"

Nezumi's expression darkened. "They—"

Someone shouted in the distance, and the sound was joined a second later by more frantic shouts. Shion swallowed. The guards must have discovered Nezumi's escape.

Nezumi straightened. The dark look stayed. "If you don't need repayment, then that's my cue," he said, and began to walk toward the shouting.

"Wait! What are you doing?" Shion leapt forward and grabbed for his arm. Nezumi hissed and Shion quickly let go. "Sorry!" He had forgotten about the rope burn. Nezumi glared at him, cradling his wrist.

"But why are you going back? We just escaped."

"I'm still escaping. But not before I get some payback."

"Payback?" Shion searched Nezumi's thin form. He could still feel the delicate impression of his wrist bones in his hand. Nezumi was just a kid, like him. But when Shion met Nezumi's glittering grey eyes, he remembered the ease with which Nezumi had magicked his cell open. "What are you going to do?"

"Oh, nothing too terrible." Nezumi flashed him a grin. "Just sing them a song."

"A song?"

"That's right. A song to steal their hearts and carry away their souls. I'll make it a quick one." Nezumi's mouth twisted. "It's a better payment than they deserve."

Nezumi was going to sing again? Despite the worry in his chest, Shion's heart sped up. "Can I listen?"

Nezumi blinked at him. "No…." he said slowly, but a languid half-smile stole over his face a moment later. "It's to be a private performance. But since you look so eager, I think I can conjure something special for you."

Before Shion knew what was happening, Nezumi stepped forward and pressed his lips to his forehead. A whisper of power brushed his skin as Nezumi pulled back. Shion stood frozen for a second, and then touched the spot. It felt warm under his fingers, though that might have been his imagining. Or the blush creeping over his cheeks.

"What was that for?" he mumbled.

"It's a Singer's blessing. A promise that our paths will cross again—since you seem so keen on spending more time with me." Nezumi winked and Shion flushed harder. "Go home, Shion," he said gently, backing in the direction of the rising shouts, "before your mama misses you."

Nezumi turned and jogged toward the guards' camp. Shion watched until he disappeared and then did as he was bid.

He smiled the whole way back and all through the following morning. Nezumi's promise burned in his chest. Shion was proud of himself for acting on his instincts, and he felt truly blessed that his choice had led him to Nezumi.

And indeed, when the border guards' bodies were discovered later that afternoon, Shion realized how much more of a blessing it was to receive a Singer's kiss than their song.


End file.
